Gumshoe for Two

  I was still on Julia. No surprises at the Spaghetti Bowl—a big sloppy interchange where US 395 did a square dance with I-80. Its planning and construction had proceeded in fits and starts over a thirty-five-year period, finally ending up as the ugliest rat’s nest of roadwork in the Western Hemisphere. Julia looped around the mess and went west on I-80, still headed toward the Goose.

  This was like watching the pieces of a puzzle float across a table and assemble themselves into a picture that was trying to make sense, except this picture was still a muddy abstraction, like a late Picasso reflected in a funhouse mirror.

  Sarah made it back to her Audi about the time Julia parked her car on level four of the Golden Goose’s garage. By then, Jeri and Bye were in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Goose on the thirty-seventh floor, the Golden View, which made one revolution every forty-eight minutes. Bye was watching the entrance and Jeri was watching Bye, forty feet away. Ma said she and Bye had done business together in the past and he’d recognize her in a heartbeat, disguise or no. Jeri was trying to keep a low profile, glancing at Bye every so often over the top of a menu. Our conference call was still up and running. Jeri told Sarah to hustle over to her apartment and ditch the UNR sweatshirt, put on a fairly hot outfit, then get on up to the Golden View. Julia had seen her not long ago, so if she could do something with her hair in a hurry, that would be great.

  About then, Julia came in, also in sunglasses and a wig, this one reddish brown and feathered. Disguises all around. She’d been on television a lot lately; it figured she didn’t want to be recognized. She sat kitty-corner from Bye and immediately their heads were together. Two minutes later, I arrived. I sat opposite Jeri with my back to Bye and Julia, shielding Jeri from their sight. Jeri reported that Julia had a hand in Bye’s, which was interesting. So far so good, but we still had no idea what any of this meant, other than Bye and Julia were close, and Mary’s SUV was somehow involved.

  Jeri and I ordered drinks. Bye and Julia ordered drinks, but also ordered something from the menu. It looked as if they were going to be there awhile. Both of them were shooting wary glances around the room. The place wasn’t yet a quarter full. It was still early for the dinner crowd. The sun was getting low. In another hour the panorama below would improve remarkably.

  Thirty minutes later, Sarah showed up in a slinky black dress and a bouffant black wig. Cleavage and big librarian’s glasses gave her an even sexier look than usual. Having kicked the boulder that started this avalanche, Jeri departed, keeping her face averted from Bye. Sarah—now Holiday—took her place, watching Bye and Julia over my right shoulder. Julia was sitting sideways to Sarah. If she recognized the girl from the hills, that would be the ball game. Holiday took a moment to put on black lipstick, further altering her appearance, giving her a Gothic Transylvania-librarian look. Jeri and Ma stayed below on the second floor, waiting for me or Holiday to report in if Bye or Julia left. Ma and Jeri’s cell phone batteries were getting low so Ma ended the conference call, which ended the faint sound of casino conversation in my ear.

  There wasn’t anything all four of us needed to say anyway. All we could do now was wait and see what happened. I stuck my cell phone in a pocket and removed the Bluetooth earpiece. A waiter came over and hovered over Holiday. She asked for an iced tea and I ordered a Dortmunder Lager, which arrived in a pilsner glass. I also ordered us a plate of stuffed mushrooms.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked her.

  “Great. This is pretty exciting.” She lifted her head an inch and popped a glance over my shoulder at Bye and Julia.

  “Glad you like it. We world-class PIs try not to lead tedious lives. Works, too, when we’re not staring at a computer eighteen hours a day or plowing through decades-old microfiche.”

  Holiday smiled, sipped her iced tea, studied the ice in her glass for a moment, then looked up at me. “Has Jeri said anything more about . . . about Tuesdays?”

  “No, but things have been busy lately. And Ma and I were out of town for two days up in Bend, so there’s that.”

  “Uh-huh. Speaking of which—that girl up there, Sophie, wasn’t boring was she? It didn’t put you to sleep, feeling her up like that?”

  “She had to slap me awake twice. Does that count?”

  Our stuffed mushrooms arrived. I took one. Holiday gazed out the window, then looked down at her hands. “An interesting word came up a while ago when Ma and Jeri and I were talking and you weren’t around.”

  “Oh? What word was that?”

  “I just wonder if you heard it. Gift? Or gifting?”

  “Ah, yes. One of those, or any of their common derivatives. Ma brought it up on the drive to Bend.”

  Holiday smiled a little. “What do you think? I mean, is that possible? I . . . I wouldn’t even know how to bring it up again, you know, with Jeri.”

  “Me either.”

  “And then, after you two are married, that would be the end of it, wouldn’t it? So it’s almost like, why start?”

  “I’m not the best person to ask. You and Jeri might have that discussion. Probably with me out of the room.”

  “But if we did—I mean, I know it’s strange, but if she and I worked something out—then would you . . . would you want to?”

  I remembered hearing that the restaurant was eighty-four feet in diameter, so we were rocketing along at 1.1 inches per second, counterclockwise. At the moment we were headed due east. I looked out the window toward Mount Rose.

  “Mort?”

  “I’m a guy, Holiday.”

  “Could you say it in plain English, please?”

  “I don’t have a eunuch switch.”

  “English?”

  I met her eyes. “Yes. You’re very beautiful. It’s not the kind of thing I would get tired of quickly. Might take me fifty years.”

  “I’m glad. Although . . . maybe that makes it even harder.” She reached across the table and took my hand, squeezed it, then let go.

  “Speaking of which, you shed a few tears coming back from Tonopah.”

  “Sometimes I still feel like crying.” She made a little gesture at her dress. “Wearing something like this doesn’t feel the way it used to. It’s not as good as it was before. It doesn’t compare to the way it was with you in Tonopah or up in Oregon.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sighed. “Me, too. Tonopah was wonderful. Now I’m just sort of . . . blah. But that ‘gifting’ thing is stuck in my head and I can’t get it out.” She gazed out at the city, then back at me. “It’s driving me crazy, like I don’t know right or wrong anymore, like my world has been turned upside down.”

  “There’s got to be someone out there for you, someone who can give you what you want.”

  “Right. Someone like you. Lots of them around. I see them on street corners all the time. They wear signs.”

  She split a mushroom with a fork and speared half, put it in her mouth, chewed slowly. Her eyes had a shine to them that picked up lights in the room.

  Finally, she said, “You’re something else. You don’t know how different you are, do you?”

  Hell, yes. I find heads and people send me hands. An entire nation awaits my next move. But I didn’t tell her that because I’m a sensitive chap and I could tell it didn’t fit the mood.

  “Makes me want to fucking cry,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IT WAS FULL dark and we’d made nearly three revolutions by the time Bye and Julia pushed their chairs back. They gave the room a guarded look as they stood up to leave. Holiday and I hadn’t said anything about gifting for over an hour, but it was still in her eyes—even after the Dungeness crab cakes I ordered because Bye and Julia were taking their sweet time over dinner.

  I fumbled my cell phone out and speed-dialed Jeri. “Houston, I think we have liftoff.”

  “About time. Let me know when they get on the elevator.”

  “Roger, Houston. Expect a text.”

  Holiday smiled. “She puts up
with a lot, doesn’t she?”

  “She’s a sweet kid that way. Unlike my mother who abandoned me when I was six.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “No, but she wanted to. She would intentionally lose me in big department stores. After age six, Christmas was all downhill.”

  Holiday rolled her eyes. Then Bye and Julia walked past us so Holiday and I put our heads closer together to hide our faces. She kissed me until they were far enough away, which was an excellent PI move and very nice.

  “More, please,” she said when I backed away.

  “Can’t. Houston awaits.”

  When the elevator door closed on the lawyer and the erstwhile senator’s wife and would-be First Lady, I texted Jeri with the news. Holiday and I got up. I dropped sixty dollars on the table, then we went over and hit the down button.

  Jeri and Ma weren’t there when we got to the mezzanine. My phone rang. The screen showed a picture of Jeri.

  “Yeah? Who’s this?” I said.

  “Your fiancée and she’s damn tired of waiting around so don’t start. I’m in my car. Leland and Julia are in a lip-lock beside his car, might need chiropractic help to separate, so I don’t know how long it’ll be before I get to tail anyone.”

  “Hang in there, kiddo.”

  “Actually, they’re giving me an idea of what you and I might do later. That six-minute thing yesterday has worn off entirely.”

  “I’ll have you know that was a ten-minute thing. You’d think the afterglow would last longer.”

  Holiday lifted an eyebrow at me.

  “Okay, both of them are getting in Bye’s car,” Jeri said. “Gotta go, Mort. Stay tuned.”

  Jeri followed them out of the parking garage and Ma followed Jeri. That parade stayed together all the way out I-80 to the town of Fernley with Ma and Jeri trading places to reduce the chances that the lovebirds would know they were being followed. At one point, Ma had to push her Caddy up to seventy-five, a death-defying feat. Holiday and I piled into her Audi. She drove. She’d parked her car next to my Toyota in the garage, so I got my gun from under the seat before we headed out. We were only three or four minutes behind Ma and Jeri by the time we reached Sparks on I-80, but it took us most of the way to Fernley to catch up. Finally, Ma’s Eldorado came into view, at which point we passed her, then Jeri, and took over the lead in the chase.

  We were back on a conference call, three-way, with me, Ma, and Jeri talking to each other. Jeri suggested that Holiday and I pass Bye’s SUV before it reached the first Fernley exit. A second exit off the interstate would take us into the east end of town if Bye got off at Fernley, which seemed likely. With the Audi ahead of him, the parade following him wouldn’t be so obvious. Holiday could get off I-80 two miles away and come back, or hit Highway 50 and keep going, if Bye and Julia were going all the way to Fallon.

  Not a bad plan. Holiday gunned it and we shot past Bye and girlfriend Julia at eighty miles an hour, a mile before they reached the first Fernley exit. Less than a minute later, Jeri reported that Bye had indeed exited at Fernley, so Holiday raced up to the next exit and got off, went south about three-quarters of a mile to Highway 50 and headed back west on the main street through town.

  Jeri dropped back. Ma took over the lead. Bye went through town, passing Holiday and me in the Audi in the opposite direction. The Lexus turned south and went through an older neighborhood that thinned out into widely spaced ranch houses, dark under elms and willows. The road had no streetlights. A sign at the turnoff onto the road read: No Through Street.

  “They’re gonna spot me if I keep this up,” Ma said.

  “Drop back and turn off,” Jeri said. “Use a blinker. Let them see you turn. I’ll take him.”

  By then Holiday and I were a quarter mile behind Jeri and catching up fast. It wasn’t a through street so we were going to run out of pavement after a while.

  “Fun,” Holiday said.

  “Damn near a riot,” I replied. “Just remember Wexel is dead and Reinhart’s hand was FedExed from Oregon.”

  Far ahead, I saw the brake lights of Bye’s Lexus come on, then he turned left off the road. Headlights revealed the skeletal arms of a few dead trees, a broken-down pole fence, a ragged line of waist-high weeds. A hundred yards off the road, a dark single-story house was nestled in a grove of willows.

  Jeri drove past the place, kept going.

  “Slow down,” I told Holiday. “Go by at twenty-five.”

  I squinted at an address on an old mailbox, but couldn’t read it. The post was one of those welded chain-link jobs that look like a cobra. Bye’s Lexus had stopped beside the house, lights on, aimed at an old single-car garage. As I watched, the lights went out.

  “Keep going,” I told Holiday.

  A quarter mile down the road we passed Jeri’s Porsche parked with its lights off. Jeri was outside, waiting for us. We went by and Holiday cut the lights before making a U-turn and coming up behind the Porsche.

  Jeri walked over. Holiday powered down her window.

  Jeri leaned in. “I’m gonna go check the mailbox for an address. And I want to see if lights come on inside or if I can hear anything in the house. Mort, you coming?”

  “Try to keep me away.” I opened the door.

  “Be careful,” Holiday said as I got out.

  “No need. Got my pit bull and my gun.”

  Jeri and I walked up the road toward the house. In my ear, Ma said, “What’s going on, guys?”

  “Checking the house, Ma,” Jeri said. “I’m gonna get this thing out of my ear. I need to listen to the night. Leave yours in, Mort.”

  Lights came on in the mystery house, twin yellow rectangles in the night. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

  We reached the mailbox. Jeri turned on a tiny flashlight on her key ring, shielding its glow from the house with a hand.

  “Number 4062,” she said. “Remember that. And we’re on Old Aspen Road, in case you didn’t know.”

  I didn’t, of course. I hadn’t taken note of the street sign when we came in, so I still had stuff to learn. “Does that mean there’s a New Aspen Road around here somewhere?”

  “Not necessarily. Think about it.”

  Man, I hate smart-asses.

  We watched the house for several minutes. Lights were on in a room facing the street. The place was silent. I shivered in the dark. Soon it would be October; nights were starting to get chilly.

  “I’m goddamn starving,” Jeri said.

  “You didn’t get anything at the Goose?”

  “How could I? Ma and I didn’t know when those two would up and leave. How about you and Holiday?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Humor me. I can enjoy food vicariously.”

  “We’ll see about that. She and I had stuffed mushrooms and Dungeness crab cakes.”

  “I was wrong, you were right. Take it back.”

  “No take-backs, honey bun.”

  “You two have a nice talk? You were up there for two and a half hours.”

  “Yep. The conversation roamed wild and free.”

  “I’ll bet.” She looked toward the house. “It’s pretty dark out here. How about we walk up this driveway a ways?”

  “Got my gun with me, sugar.”

  “Well, try not to use it. Anyway, was that a yes?”

  “A little way, maybe. Not sure what you think we’re gonna see, and there’s a chance we’ll get caught, so . . . how about we don’t.”

  “Do you always think like that? Out loud and circular?”

  “You should’ve heard me in the IRS. I could panic a husband and wife like nothing you ever saw.”

  She sighed. “Actually, I think you might be right. I can’t see us getting close enough to peek in windows. I wish I knew what they were saying and doing in there.”

  “You’re the one who saw them kissing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So there’s a grotesque saying about a beast with two backs that might apply
right about now.”

  “Heard that one. I’ve never liked it either.” She was quiet for a moment. “Jeez, I’m goddamn starving, Mort.”

  “Another saying I’ve heard recently.”

  Two minutes later, the lights in the house went out. We waited, but no one came out to the Lexus. The night stayed quiet.

  “Maybe we oughta come back later,” Jeri said. “It’s not like we’re going to knock on the door and say we’re out of gas and can we use their phone to call triple-A.”

  “You gotta admit, this is an interesting juncture in the evening. Wife of lying presidential hopeful in what looks like a tryst with a lying, cuckolding lawyer.”

  “Adjectives, Mort.”

  “Just sayin’.”

  “Okay, let’s go. I’m about to eat my own arm. I won’t make it back to Reno without food, so where’s a good place to eat around here?”

  The four of us ended up at Pancho and Evita’s, a Mexican food place worth coming back to every month or so. Stuffed mushrooms only go so far, and Dungeness crab cakes are tasty but even more smackeroos per calorie. I had the three-enchilada plate and, since either Holiday or Jeri was going to drive me back to Reno, I had two Corona beers, straight from chilled bottles. Everyone else had this or that Mexican dish, so it was like a fiesta in there, about what I’d expected when we first drove up.

  Ma and Holiday took off, so Jeri and I found Old Aspen Road and tooled on down in her Porsche at twenty-five, found the cobra mailbox. Lights were off in the house, but a sliver of crescent moon glinted off Leland’s Lexus, which hadn’t moved.

  “Methinks a beast stirs in the night,” I said.

  “Gives me a half-decent idea,” Jeri responded. She put a hand on the back of my neck and rubbed for a moment, then put the Porsche in gear and drove us back to Reno.